'America's most wanted deadbeat dad' arrested after fleeing to Thailand to avoid $1.2m in child support payments

The man who earned the dubious honor of being the federal government's 'most wanted deadbeat dad' has finally been caught.

Robert Sand was arrested on Monday for failing to pay more than $1.2million in child support for his three children.

His troubles date back to 1996 when the first legal complaints were filed against him for not paying child support to either of his two ex wives, and he fled to Florida and later Thailand to avoid the payments.

Guilty: Robert Sand has admitted failing to pay more than $1.2million in child support for his three children

'I think he should be locked up for a long time,' his second ex-wife told The Daily News.

'He was a terrible role model, so I think it benefited us not having him around,' she said of she and her daughter.

Even though his bad influences may have been out of her daughter's sight, the wife still says that he owes her an estimated $400,000 in child support payments.

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Before leaving the country, he earned between $500,000 and $600,000 per from automobile auctions. When he lived in Thailand, he had downgraded to selling motorcycles.

Arrest warrants were issued for Sand, 50, repeatedly ever since he stopped paying in 1996. In 2000, 2002 and 2010 he was charged with failure to comply with court orders, and in 2009 he faced a federal indictment on the same issue.

According to the Office of the Inspector General, which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, Sand's legal problems did not end when he fled the country.

Arrested: Sand was arrested when he landed in Los Angeles International Airport from the Philippines

'I told him to stick it out, that you can't get blood from a stone, but he said he didn't have that kind of money to pay,' Sand's mother Rita told The Daily News about his decision to run.

While living in Thailand, he was arrested for possessing a false British passport.

The final straw came when he tried to enter the Philippines with false identification, and the country extradited him to the U.S.

Sand was arrested when he landed in Los Angeles and will face trial in Long Island in the coming weeks.